What do you call someone who is mediocre at best on a variety of fields but likes to pose as a polished and cultured person?
I’m not sure if I’m explaining this well. This person has a “I’m better than you” or “I know better and say it best” attitude, likes to pass as sensible and intellectual but when you contrast how they try to come across with what they actually do, how indifferent they are to others, and the quality of the skills they like to boast about it doesn’t add up. It’s all superficial, there is no substance to them, and no apparent self awareness ever of any of these shortcomings.
It’s like a special brand of “full of it”. Is there a word for it?
An arrogant hypocrite who’s not nearly as clever as they think they are? A silly man pretending to be otherwise? Me?!
Was gonna say, I’m not throwing stones in this glass house.
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I guess poser is the closest but it’s like an intellectual type of poser. I was hoping for something a bit harsher than just poser though.
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Poseur.
something a bit harsher
Fake-ass poser mother fucker.
Superlicious maybe. Dunning-Kruger in an empty suit.
Did you maybe mean supercilious?
Edit: It seems like OP wants something like “supercilious incompetent”
I totally did. That’s a funny typo though
I actually like that the right word is as basic as poser.
They’d like to have a special name, but they’re literally just a bog-standard poser.
Bombastic? Pretentious? Braggart?
I second pretentious.
OP’s hypothetical person is explicitly assertive. Pretentious doesn’t convey assertion. You can be pretentious internally and keep it to yourself.
I think pretentious is the closest match but it’s still lacking something else. Another commenter suggested two words instead of one, I guess that might be the way to go
“Pretentious douchebag” will probably fit the bill.
A pretentious prick
Superiority complex.
Agreeing with arrogant as the best word for this
This sounds like the type of person I would refer to as a know-it-all.
Elitism?
Grandiose delusional
I’d probably call them lost or insecure.
Most people with behaviors like that do it as a defense mechanism.
Intellectual snob.
Pseudo intellectual. Pseudo polymath. Pseudo erudite…
The word is arrogant:-
‘having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one’s own importance or abilities.’
I always called them “arrogant for no reason”
Isn’t the “for no reason” baked into the word arrogant already? If their behavior was justified it would just be called confident.
If you’ve got a black cat, they’ve got a blacker cat?
If you’ve been to Tenerife they’ve been to Elevenerife?
I call that “one-up-manship”
